1st Week Back

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify the word 'with' in text around them

2. How they can use a picture to tell a story

3. To write and solve equations and read the number sentence

4. How we can sink wood and how we can change its shape

We LOVE the snow!

🎉 Our paw jar is full again! We will celebrate our great behavior on Monday with a pajama and stuffed animal day! Yes, that's right, this time the kid's can bring along one of their stuffed animals. Please help your child choose a stuffed friend that will easily fit in their backpack, next to them on the rug and at their table seats.

✨ Student Council has scheduled a school-wide twin day next Friday, December 7th! Help your child come up with something they can wear to match a friend or sibling for the day.

📗 In your child's Friday Folder you will find the December Scholastic Book Flyers for the month of December. There are tons of great options for beginning readers including picture books, leveled readers, and early chapter books. The order due date will be by the morning of Monday, December 10th. This early date ensures books ordered will be delivered by the 20th, which is just before our winter break! If you are wanting books to be a surprise/gift just let me know and we can figure out the best way to keep this wonderful surprise. 😊

📚 In reading this week we focused on drawing conclusions. We read various stories that taught us a lesson or showed us a feeling without actually telling us the main point. We then discussed how we gathered this idea using evidence from the text and illustrations to support our thinking. These kiddos sure are intuitive!

🖊 Pictures tell us all sorts of things, and they are a major part of the stories we read! For writing we are using a show and tell method: I show a picture to the class and the students tell the story as they imagine it. This is a great way to eliminate the stress of finding a topic to write about and focus more on the words we are writing. Show and tell writing is a simple and fun way to get your child writing at home! Show a picture (of family, animals, buildings, anything!) and have them draw it in their own way... adding details as they see fit for their story of the picture - then, write!

Our first Show and Tell picture story.

🔢 This week in math we have been working to write equations! We realized taking two separate groups and putting them together to find out how many is really addition in disguise! We can show this by writing an equation: ___ + ___ = ___! We then practice reading the equation by using our number sentence ___ plus ___ equals ___. You can do this at home with your child by gathering two groups of objects, counting how many and then writing the equation, solving it, and reading it aloud.

🌳 Science focused on two aspects this week: how to sink something that floats, and how we can alter the shape of wood. These were fun activities that can be extremely versatile. We used rubber bands and paperclips to sink two different types of wood, and then discussed why they might be different in how many paperclips they need to sink. You could try this at home and change the item you are sinking or the materials used to sink it! We then used sandpaper to create sawdust from a piece of wood. We discussed how this changes the wood in shape, size, and texture. You could do this at home with sticks and sandpaper. 

Fall Break 🦃

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identifying the words 'come' and 'my' in text around them

2. How they feel about writing now that they are published authors

3. Combining numbers of objects to see how many in all

4. How wood reacts to water

5. All of the fun fall activities and surprises they have had 🍂

6. Blankets coming home... washing time! 🙂

🦃 We have had a quick two weeks and are excited for our long weekend break! I hope you all are able to relax and enjoy some wonderful time with family and friends. I am beyond thankful for all of these kiddos and the hard work they put in each and every day, as well as everything you do as a family to support them. Thank you!

🍎 Thank you all for meeting at conferences! I am always available to talk anytime as needed, just let me know. 

🎉 Next week we will be back to our regular full schedule and on Friday the 30th, the student council has decided we will do a crazy sock day! 

🙂 I would like to ask for your help that we only bring items for show and tell on Mondays and/or Fridays. We have been bringing lots and lots of great things to share but it is becoming a little time consuming. If you could help your child decide on special things to share and limit them to Mondays and/or Fridays this would really help! Thank you!

📚 Reading these past two short weeks has helped us focus on comparing and contrasting stories and their characters. We looked within each of our stories for things that were the same and different for the characters and settings, as well as across different books of the same story (for example different Three Little Pigs stories). This helped us not only find similarities and differences, but it also helped us understand different character's point of view. This helps us while reading as well as in our own lives when we are trying to understand what someone around us might be thinking and feeling.

🖊 Next week we will start a new writing unit called Show and Tell. This unit consists of showing the students a scenario, then providing them with time to draw it, label their drawing, and work on a story to explain the scenario. I am very excited for this unit as it takes away the stress of thinking of something to write about and allows the student to focus on the words. This can easily be done at home by showing your child a picture (something silly or interesting to them) and allowing them to explain the story to you. They can then write out what they think is causing the picture to be the way it is. This week we focused on how much we have grown and even gave a quote about our writing just like real authors do for reporters!

✅ We have expanded our study of greater than, less than, or equal to by combining the groups. Now when we count objects in a group and compare them to another group we can put them all together to see how many in all! Wow! We are adding! We have been able to complete number sentences by saying ___ and ___ make/is ___. Next week we will be placing the addition symbol and equal sign into our number sentences. This will be a big step in our mathematical process!

🌳💧 We had a lot of fun exploring how wood reacts with water. We used two different types of wood for these experiments and compared their reactions. One type of wood was Particle Board and the other was Red Cedar. We started our investigation by discussing what we thought would happen to the wood and water, then we practiced using a dropper. We first tested just one drop of water on each side of the two types of wood. Then we compared how the two types of wood reacted when placed in a tub of water. We had a lot of fun experimenting with wood and water!

SNOW ❄

Ask Your Child About...

1. To identify and spell the word 'can' in text around you

2. Scrambled up sentences!

3. Sorting and comparing groups of objects

4. Balloon Rocket!

5. Kinder Tales field trip!

   
What a fantastic week! Conferences are off to a great start and we had our very first field trip! 😊

❄ It is feeling like fall and maybe even winter! We all noticed the change in weather this week as it was much chillier and windier at recess! We also had snow! Thank you for sending your child in the proper gear! Feel free to show them the handy hat and glove trick. 🙂 This consists of placing your mittens inside your hat and then inside your coat sleeve. This prevents us from losing them or mixing them up with other classmates' things! Another helpful tool is to write your child's name on each and every piece of weather clothing. Many of our things are similar and hard to tell apart. We also get so excited about the snow that we tend to misplace things. Having your child's name on everything will ensure it gets back to them quickly. Thank you!
❄ For reference, students are only allowed to play in the snow if they have snow boots and pants along with their winter coat, hat, and gloves. Otherwise they will be confined to the blacktop.

🎉 On Wednesdays the Student Council will bring around the school store on a cart. This is a fun way to raise money for Lincoln student council. The store consists of pencils, gel pens, erasers, highlighters, mini notebooks, and other small school supply items. These items vary in price from a quarter to one dollar. This is completely optional and only available on Wednesday mornings.

🍎 Next Friday the 16th, there will be no school due to conferences.

📚 In reading we focused on summarizing our stories! We discovered how to find the important details and and rephrase the story so it short but showing the overall idea. The students are getting really good at this! 👍 We also focused on the word 'can'. This is a word we have been seeing a lot in our reading so we are excited to be able to spell and remember it for our own stories!

🖊 We are currently between writing units which allows us some time to practice penmanship and sentence structure. We have been working with scrambled sentences to help us identify the beginning, middle, and end of a sentence. We then work to rewrite it in our very best handwriting. You can do this with your child at home by creating short simple sentences for them to work through. Simply write out the sentence, cut it apart, and then help your child read the words and put them in the correct order. They can then rewrite the sentence on a new sheet and even add their own illustrations!

🔢 In math we have been doing a little review of sorting and comparing groups of objects. This is something your child has most likely seen before this year and is being reviewed to ensure they have a solid foundation. We look at images and work with objects to create different types of groups and then compare how many. For example, we might look at a picture of some animals outside. We would then classify our animals into two different groups such as animals with wings and animals not with wings. We then count the number of animals in each group and write the number down. Then we identify the group that has the greater, least, or equal amount. This is easy to do at home or while you are out and about!

🎈 We continued our study of pushes and pulls in science by experimenting with balloon rockets! This was a very fun and easy activity that you could also set up at home! This experiment helped us see how a balloon can move and how air can be a force. We talked about how we can change the way the balloon moves by adding more air, taking away air, or blocking the path with different objects. Next week we will return to our study of wood!

Happy Halloween! 🎃

      

Ask Your Child About...

1. Author's Celebration
2. Adding one to a group

3. Finding slopes around us

    

    

What a wonderful Halloween Week! Thank you to all of the parents who came out to help and support our class and school! We love having our families come see us! 😊 Next Thursday, November 8th will be the field trip to Kinder Tales! Again, thank you for getting the permission slips back so quickly and for those who have volunteered to hep us! 😊 

In your child's Friday Folder you will find some information about the book fair. I am also sending home our November Scholastic order and will ask for all orders to be placed by November 16th. Thank you in advance for showing interest in our kiddos reading! 📗

🎉 Next Friday the 9th will be a school-wide pajama day! We loved wearing our pajamas to school for our paw jar celebration and are excited to wear them again with the entire school! We will also have an extra recess Monday as a celebration for filling our paw jar again! Way to go lions!! 🦁

📚 Reading this week brought our attention to text and graphic features! We learned how these extra pictures and labels can help us better understand what we are reading. This tied right into our writing as we are working to add details that help our readers understand what we are writing about.

🖊 Beyond adding details to our writing we focused on making a writing piece complete. We looked at some examples of our favorite books to think of some things writers do before they publish their books. We decided that writers took a careful look at their words to make sure they can understand them, they add any last details to their pictures and label things that may need identifying, add extra lined pages for pages that require more writing, and meet with a fellow author to double check. When we were done with our checking process, we had a celebration! Each author read their favorite true story to the class and their big buddies! We also had a toast (... no, not the kind you put butter on 😅) to our great work as official authors of teaching books and true stories.

✅ In math, we finished up our work with comparing groups of objects and moved on to adding one more. We realized we don't need to go back and count all the objects again! No way! We can just count on! For example, if we count a group of 5 and add one more, we don't need to go back and count all the pieces again with the new piece! No way! We can say "5 and one more makes 6!" You can help your child by counting on at home or while at the store. Counting objects in a book and asking what is one more or one less.

🏀 Science brought us outside to find ramps all around us! We experimented with different types of ball, changing the size, weight, and color. Our scientists were very excited to try out different balls on the ramps we found on and around the playground! We found that the heavier the ball, the faster it went! The steeper the slope, the fast it went! If our slope has holes, it is not a very good slope, and color doesn't matter! WOW! What great investigators!

Slope Science Experts!

Full Moon 🌑

Ask Your Child About...

1. Telling true stories

2. Using word bubbles in their writing

3. To compare groups of items

4. What happens when objects collide

5. To find the word 'a' in various texts
6. Thankful Pumpkins

What a whirlwind of a week! Time seems to fly by with these fantastic kindergartners! 😊 Thank you for returning the field trip permission slips in such a timely manner and a special shout out to those who are able to help us on that day! Along with your child's Friday Folder you will find a stuffed pumpkin. We created these with our 4th grade buddies with the idea that they can serve as a decoration until you decide to rip them open! On the inside you will find slips of paper that contain things our kiddos are thankful for. You can read these together all at once or spread them out through the coming month. 😊

🎃 Friendly reminder that next Wednesday is the Halloween Celebration. Keep an eye out for a Blackboard Connect text message around 1:00 pm if the parade will be cancelled due to rain (let's hope not!). All costumes are welcome as long as they are appropriate and do not include any toy weapons. You are more than welcome to watch the parade out on the playground by entering the south gate no sooner than 1:45. The classroom celebration will begin at about 2:30 pm. Thank you for all of your understanding and patience in this process!

📚 Reading focus this week was on details! We practiced retelling stories using all the details we could remember. We also focused on the word 'a'. Many of the students felt this was a silly word to practice because it was too easy, but we soon realized it is very important! We found the word all over the place and heard it throughout each day. You can extend this by asking your child where they could place the word 'a' as you shop around the store or pick up items in your house.

✏ Writing also focused on retelling stories... true stories! We have moved on from our teaching books and are now writing true stories. We are still using all of our old techniques: sound it out, stretch it like a rubber band, partner up, and add pages, but now we are focusing on stories that really happened to us. Help your child think of some great stories they can tell, help them remember all the details, and then ask them what should go on each page of their book or scroll!

🔢 This week in math we focused on comparing groups of objects. We got out some of our happy choice items and a pair of dice. We would roll the dice to see what number, then set out that amount of objects. Once our partner did the same, we would compare using the phrases "__ is less than __", "__ is greater than __", and "__ is equal to __". We could even count both groups of objects to see how many we had total! Feel free to try this game at home. 

⚽ In science we continued to work with pushes, pulls, and gravity while adding ramps! We used a ramp, ball and pieces of wood to see how objects collide. This was a fun activity that allowed for a lot of variation between students. They tested how the ramp affected the experiment, how the blocks could be placed different ways, and how releasing the ball differently changes the outcome as well!

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns please don't hesitate to reach out!

Have a fantastic Friday and a wonderful weekend! 🦁

Full Week Back

Ask Your Child About...

1. Why writer's have partners
2. To group items (toys, leaves, buttons, etc.) in different ways
3. Where wood comes from
4. What makes a ball go fast or slow, cause and effect, and gravity!
5. Rear bus evacuation (sit on bottom and slide out)

❄ Friends enjoying the frost on the ground! ❄

🚌 Field Trip! In your Lincoln Friday Folder, you will see a field trip form for the Iowa City Children's Museum. The orange sheet has a place to sign and send back to school (the bottom can be cut off and kept for your reminder). The green sheet also needs to come back filled out with your child's lunch choice. The orange and green sheet are due back by Wednesday the 24th! Thank you! *Also, we currently have one parent volunteer for this trip and are in need of two more. If you are able to join us by 8:45-12:00 please sign up and/or let me know! Thank you!! 😊

🎃 Halloween Parade/Party update:

This year students will parade out the north doors along the blacktop path on the playground and re-enter the building through the south doors in the early childhood wing. Parents are welcome to observe the parade on the playground and may enter the playground at the south gate beginning at 1:45 pm. After we parade, students will have a class party before dismissal time. Lincoln PTO arranges for parent volunteers and homeroom parents to help with the class party, games, and healthy treat options. All are welcome to wear costumes for the parade(no play weapons),  but it is not required. 

Reminder that in the event of rain, the parade will be cancelled. Please watch for a Blackboard Connect text message by 1:00 pm if it is decided to cancel the parade.

🍎 If you are able, I would like to ask for your help to bring more graham cracker boxes to school next week or at your earliest convenience. We've gained one box 🙂 Thank you in advance for helping provide snack for our class!

📚 In reading this week we focused on characters. This included identifying the characters of our story as well as working to understand them. We talked about how we can see emotion on character's faces and with their bodies. We even practiced showing some of these emotions ourselves! Once we decided on an emotion or feeling, we worked to understand why that character might be feeling the way they do. This is great practice to help understand stories, as well as our real-life friends!
📗 October's Scholastic order has been submitted and should arrive before Halloween! I was able to get a few new titles for our classroom library through order points, so thank you for the new additions in class as well! 😊

🖊 Our new focus in writing is adding details. We each have a writing partner that will help us clarify our writing! We spend a couple of days writing on our own at our tables, then we spend a day working with our partner. This allows the students to see how other students may be completing their work, as well as give and take help with peers! We focus on asking questions that we still have after our partner has read their story. This helps the writer add details to their drawings, labels, and writing!

✅ The big focus in math has been making different groups of numbers. This consists of the students grouping a set of ten objects in different ways. This helps the students see there are many ways to make the same number! 

🚂 We are starting our new science unit: Materials and Motion! This unit will include looking at natural resources and how they are used and manipulated by people, as well as balls and ramps! We had a sneak peak at one natural resource: wood! We learned a lot about different wood types and how they are made. This was a great connection to our tree studies! We will come back to natural resources in a few weeks, as we are going to focus on balls and ramps for now. This study will introduce how pushes and pulls make objects moves (even when we can't see the push or pull!). We will introduce gravity and forces!

What a short week!

Ask Your Child About...

1. Our new friend in class!

2. Leaf shape and color and wind socks

3. Another way writers create stories: scrolls!
4. How writers make books: they plan!
5. Filling the Paw Jar! 

6. To identify the word see (it was our focus word this week)

Wowzers! This week went by super fast! I hope you are all ready for the weekend again! 🙂

This week we had an exciting event: a new classmate! Be sure to ask your student our new friend and help them come up with some ideas to make him feel welcome in our school home. 💕

🎉 We have filled our Paw Jar once again! This time we will celebrate with a pajama day! Next Thursday, the 18th will be the day. Everyone in our class is invited to wear their pajamas all day, just be sure they are warm and appropriate for an entire day of school (no stuffed animals please - that will be a separate celebration). 😊 Way to go Lions!

🦁 Next Friday, the 19th we will have a school spirit day where kids are encouraged to wear a t-shirt of their favorite team. The following Friday, the 26th will be crazy hat/hair day! The kids will get reminders the Thursday before from a student council representative. Please let me know if you have any questions!

🙂 If you are able, I would like to ask for your help to bring more graham cracker boxes to school next week or at your earliest convenience. Our graham cracker stock is down to two boxes, which will last us through next week. Thank you in advance for helping provide snack for our class!

🎃 I've been getting some emails about helping with the Halloween parade and party - thank you! I believe there was an email sent out for signing up to bring things as well as help. We greatly appreciate anything you can do to help us celebrate at school! We are extra excited this year as we have all of the Mann students and teachers joining us in the parade!

👻 Here are some details about the event: 

1. It will take place on Wednesday, October 31st

2. The schools will parade together starting at 2:00 pm 

3. We will have snack and drink afterwards in the classroom

4. Your child may wear a costume for the parade and party - please place these items in a separate bag for them to change into during the school day. Thank you!

5. We will plan to wear our costumes home

*If you would like to watch the parade, you are more than welcome to find a spot along the route to watch. Keep fingers crossed for dry weather (if it is raining there will be no parade)! If you have any questions about our celebration please don't hesitate to ask!

📗 A friendly reminder that our October Scholastic orders are due next Friday morning the 19th. I will always wait until after I take attendance to submit the orders to ensure I get any that may be in backpacks, but they will be submitted before the end of the day. 

👁‍🗨 This week in reading we focused on the word see. This is a word that we have seen in almost all of our small books but haven't quite focused on. The kids had a fun time with this one as we use it so much in our day! Feel free to practice reading, writing, and spelling see at home!

🔢 Math this week focused on recognizing, writing, and showing the numbers 8, 9, and 10. Many of our classmates know how to count well beyond these numbers but it is important to help them understand what each number means. Help your child better understand each number by comparing these numbers; which has more or less. Practice writing each of the numbers to ensure they are facing the correct way. If you see numbers while you are out and about ask your child to identify them for you! Ask them what would be greater than or less than that number!

📜 We continued our work with creating books that have several pages about the same topic. This week we also learned a new way to continue a writing a story: scrolls! We talked about how scrolls are a fun way to show what happens first, next, and last. In order to make a scroll we learned to take a small piece of tape and place it on one edge of our paper and then place another small piece at the other edge of our paper. This allows us to connect our papers, roll them into a small piece, and save them for sharing in a unique way! Way to go Lion Factory Writers! 🦁

Our science studies have brought us to leaves and weather. Part of our daily routine each morning is to have a weatherperson look out the window and tell us what they see. We then record this on our weather data sheet and compare each type of weather to see what we have had the most and least of. This week we took that knowledge and put it to use during science! We talked about weather and how we can use symbols to show what the weather is looking like. We recorded one day's weather in our Science Journals! 🔆☔⛄
We also did some leaf studies! We talked about the different shapes and colors of leaves and what they might tell us about the tree. We then placed different leaves on a chart of shapes to help us better see how they compare. Your child may ask to go on a hunt for paddle shaped leaves - Ms. Grady couldn't seem to find any! 🍁🌿🍂
This week in science we also created wind socks! You should have seen your child's windsock come home yesterday. We used these to help us understand how wind moves and how to tell which direction it is going. ⛅

Flying our windsocks!

The whole class with our wind socks!

I hope you have a fantastic week and rest up for a full week of school ahead! 🙂

Long Weekend 🙂

Ask Your Child About...

1. Our new tree!

2. To sequence a story for you: what happened first, next, and last?
3. To identify the words I, like, to, we, the, and (these are all the words we have focused on so far)!

We had many exciting things during this short week of school! We had our Children's Museum Box Party celebration for filling the school Paw Ticket Tank, the Latin Jazz Concert, planted our very own tree, and we learned all about fire safety! Friendly reminder that we do not have school this Friday or this coming Monday.

Enjoy a few pictures of our friends playing in the boxes!

           

                                            

                                                             

                                                                         Latin Jazz Concert from U of I

Fire Safety Assembly

This week in reading we did not add any new words, but rather reviewed the words we've been working with for the past couple of weeks. Please help your child notice these words in the world around them. 😊 One fun way to help your child recognize these words is to write each on its own index card (or small piece of paper), then make another set and play memory match with them! Have them say the word when they flip it over in order to keep going, and if they make a match have them spell the word! We also worked on sequencing stories! We focus on the main events to retell what happened first, next, and last. You can do this with your child at home by reading them a story and helping them to identify the main parts. 

We finished up our work with grouping the numbers 0-5 and began to identify the numbers 6 and 7 as well as how to write them. Have your child count these numbers, group objects into categories and write each number! This can be done at home, at the store, or anywhere! 🏡🏫🌲🏦

This week in science we were able to check out our new tree and take some scientific notes about it! We learned what a tree needs in order to grow big, strong, and healthy (air, sunlight, water, soil, and space) and how a new tree might look, feel, smell, and sound differently than older trees. We also got to plant our new tree! It has a great spot next to the playground we always play on! 🌳 We will have lots of opportunities to check on our tree throughout the year and be proud of what we are leaving behind for our Hoover friends next year when they move in. 😊

  

Tree planting process

                                                 

                                                    Taking scientific notes!

Our class with our new tree and Tree Helper Nick!

Enjoy this long weekend with your family! 🙂

Hello Fall 🍂

Ask Your Child About...

1. What landforms they learned about and if they have a favorite.

2. What they learned about jobs and how anyone can be anything they set their mind to!

3. What writers do when they have filled up a page.

4. To identify the word 'and' in various writings (this was our focus word this week)!

A little note left on our class board 😊

Fall has made itself known! 🍂 The kids are getting excited for the changing colors we will see around us! Many of our friends were a tad chilly at recess today, so be sure to send them in layers as the temperatures continue to drop. Gloves and hats are also welcome! With the weather change comes less daylight and sometimes sleepier kiddos. Although your child may be use to a later bed time during the summer, that may need to move up a little in order to ensure they are still getting plenty of rest. Remember: 10-12 hours of sleep is recommended for children this age, which may mean going to bed at 7:30. Kindergarten is tough work! 😴🙂

📚 This week in reading we learned about different kinds of jobs! Many of the kids already have ideas of what they want to be! This is great as you can help them understand how hard work and trying our best in everything we do is the way to get there! We also discussed the fact that anyone can become anything they put their mind to. There is no such thing as a girl's job or a boy's job! We want to encourage our kiddos to reach for the stars and boost their confidence by expressing our belief in their skills. 🌟

🔢 In math we worked on comparing numbers using the new vocabulary words: equal, same, different, less than, and greater than. You can create fun activities at home to compare the number of toys, leaves, crackers, and so on!

✏ Our writing time focused on how to create books! Yes, that's right, we really are becoming authors! We learned that once a page is full, if we still have more to share about that same topic we can get a new sheet of paper and continue writing! Once that page is full we can add it to our last one by using a stapler. Way to go Lion Factory Writers!

🌳 Science brought us into landforms and how trees might grow differently in each area. The children identified landforms close to us and far away! Next week will be an exciting time in science as we prepare to plant our very own tulip tree in the schoolyard! We will have some class discussions about what trees need to survive and how we can help our tree grow big, strong, and healthy. The tree planting will take place on Thursday morning.

A few things to take note of that are coming up...
🔥 Fire prevention week is October 7th-13th. This year Lincoln will have the local firefighters visit for a K-4 assembly in the multipurpose room on Thursday, October 4th. This assembly is open to all student guardians and will take place at 9:00 a.m. This year's slogan is "Look. Learn. Be aware. Fire can happen anywhere." This slogan includes three main steps: 1. Look for places fire could start. 2. Listen for the sound of the smoke alarm. 3. Learn two ways out of every room and ensure that all doors and windows are clear and easily opened by all members of the family. I encourage you all to practice at home this weekend or through next week!

😎 Remember there will be no school on Friday due to an in-service.

📗 Scholastic books will arrive Monday and be sent home with your student! New order forms are coming home today in the kid's Lincoln Lion Friday folders. You may place orders from these new flyers anytime before the morning of October 19th. These can be done through  paper or online with the code RCYJT. I moved the due date up a little to ensure the books will arrive before the end of the month and any holiday/seasonal books purchased will be able to be read in time! Thank you!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and please reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns! 😊

It was great to see you! 🦁

Ask Your Child About...

1. The four seasons and what it may look like on a tree.

2. What they learned about caring for pets: responsibility and extra love.

3. How writing is like a rubber band and the Little Engine That Could.

4. To identify the word 'the' in various writings (this was our focus word this week)!
5. Their adopted tree!

A huge thank you for making it out for Back to School Night last night! The kids were all excited to show you around the room and the school! This is always a great opportunity for the kids to take ownership in their environment and be proud of what they do each day. Thank you again! 😊

This week we also celebrated Constitution Day with a read aloud titled We the Kids by David Catrow. This book highlights the preamble to the constitution in a more friendly manner with wonderful illustrations to match! After the read aloud we all signed a Classroom Constitution which now proudly hangs in our room. 🗽

You may have also been told of a special guest in our room this Tuesday as well as last Tuesday. A University of Iowa student, Mr. Farino, is currently studying Engineering but is considering changing majors to Education. He has been visiting various classrooms to get a feel for what teaching is all about and what different grade levels have to offer. Mr. Farino spent one full day with us and one half day. During this time he mostly observed, helped redirect students, and had small conversational interactions with the students. Mr. Farino said he enjoyed being in our classroom and is excited to see more! 🍎

Mr. Farino reading a story before school begins.

Friday marked the end of our first math topic of counting from 0-5 in written, verbal, and visual formats. We also went over some vocabulary words to help explain what we are talking about while discussing math: number, none, count, part, whole, and order. These are words that will continue to show up throughout their time in and out of school. A great time to ask your child about their math understanding is while cooking/baking or at the grocery store! Please keep working with your child to help them recognize these numbers in the world around them and write them with confidence. 🙂

I apologize if your child came home at any point during the week asking for a new pet! 😅 Our reading study this week focused on pets. We read lots of stories about different animals and all of the work that goes into caring for them. We talked about how we can show care and respect for not only our family and friends, but animals as well! These stories also worked hand-in-hand with our focus word: the. We discussed how the sound to make 'the' comes from our tongue pushing between the front of our teeth. We practiced different words that also make the 'th' sound. Feel free to ask your child what words make these sounds and to identify the word 'the' in text for you! 📖

Scholastic Books have been ordered and they will arrive within a week! I will send out the next order forms after that. There is an order form for each month and each time it will be due on the second to last Friday so that the books will arrive on the last Friday of the month. Each of your orders also allow for our class to earn points which allows me to pick out books for our classroom library free of charge! Thank you for helping our library grow! 🤗

Some of our friends creating their Seasons Book

This week in science we learned about the four seasons and what a tree might experience during these changing times. You should see a seasons book coming home with your child that shows how a tree changes for each one! We also went on an adventure to adopt our very own tree! The students drew our tree as scientifically accurate as they could in their journals and wrote 'summer' next to it. We will draw our tree during each of the four seasons so that we can see how it changes over time! We also collected some items from around our tree to help us study it. I encourage you to adopt a tree with your family at a local park or in your neighborhood. Let your child pick the tree and come back to it frequently to see what you can see! Are there things living in or around it? Is it young or old? How many people does it take to wrap around it? What shape is the tree and it's leaves? What does it smell like? Do some sketches and even etchings of the bark and leaves. Enjoy this simple activity outside with your family all year long! 🌳

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and are able to get out and enjoy this changing whether! It was great to see you all last night and the kid's absolutely loved being your teacher! Be sure to get plenty of rest - for the little ones and yourselves - you've earned it! 😊

We like to... 🙂

Ask Your Child About...

1. The different shapes of trees.

2. What they learned about friendship this week.

3. The steps to writing a word.

4. To identify the words 'we', 'like', and 'to' in various writings (they were our focus words this week)!

We had a strong full week of school! The kiddos are a bit tired, so be sure to get some extra sleep in this weekend in preparation for Monday. 😴😊 You will see Friday folders coming home today with school pictures and some information regarding coming to school sick. Please remember to send these folders back to school on Monday! We will have library check out on Tuesday again, so feel free to send those books back so your child may pick out new ones to bring home. Next Friday will be the last day to submit an online order or send an flyer order form with your preferred form of payment to school for this month's Scholastic. 📚

In math this week we focused on grouping 4 and 5 objects, as well as being able to identify 0. Everyone has been doing very well with these activities! Feel free to practice writing the numbers 0-5 at home and making sure we are starting from the top and not going backwards. 😊 Make it interactive by using sand, paint in a zip-lock baggy or shaving cream! 🎨 A helpful song is "I Can Write My Numbers" by Harry Kindergarten! 🎶

This week in reading we focused on the words 'we', 'like', and 'to'. You may be seeing a piece of paper with a sentence strip with these words on it and/or a book with these words in it coming home! If your student doesn't have these with them, don't worry! Some of our friends did not finish and wanted to keep them at school until they were done. Keep this book as an example of their AWESOME writing skills and to proudly show that you have an AUTHOR in your house! Yes, a real author! 😎

This leads us into writing. We have been working on how to stretch words to get them down on paper. We have three steps for getting words onto paper: 1. Say the word 2. Make the first sound. 3. Write down the letter of the sound. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have made it through the entire word. *Remember: at this point it is not about having our kids spell everything exactly right, but simply getting them to try.* We want happy, confident, willing to try learners! 😊

One friendly reminder that if after school transportation plans change please send me an email and/or call the office as we can better ensure I will know where to send the students at the end of the day! Often the kids know, but sometimes they forget, so it helps if I am able to keep a record of it as stated from a guardian as well. 🚗🚌 Thank you!

Enjoy this beautiful weather and have a wonderful weekend! 🔆